Wired and NextFest

NextFest 2007 is scheduled for September 13 - 16.
WIRED's vision of a new World's Fair is a four-day festival of innovative products and technologies that are transforming our world. This year's NextFest in Los Angeles features more than 160 interactive exhibits from leading scientists and researchers around the world.

ThingM will be presenting its new WineM RFID wine rack. The ATLAS Rope Ascender, designed by MIT students is part of the Security exhibition sponsored by Northrup Grumman. The Brasilian WheelSurf, available to try out in SL, will be in the Transportation pavilion. The LifeStraw will be in the Health pavilion. The Exploration pavilion will house a skin-tight space suit in development at MIT, and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

Most of these innovative products, even those originating in research universities, are being developed and brought to market by entrepreneurs such as PayPal's co-founder, Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002:

SpaceX aims to ... develop a family of launch vehicles which will ultimately reduce the cost and increase the reliability of space access by a factor of ten. Coupled with the newly emerging market for private and commercial space transport, this new model will re-ignite humanity's efforts to explore and develop Space.